The laws of costs shall not be interpreted as penal laws; nor shall anything in this chapter take away or abridge the discretion of a court of equity over the subject of costs, except as provided in § 17.1-604.
Va. Code Ann. § 17.1-600
Laws of costs not penal; discretion of courts of equity
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case People v. Howell (2002)
Most recently applied in 89 Va. Cir. 406 - Fairfax Square, L.L.C. v. Hermes of Paris, Inc. (January 2015)
Code 1950, § 14-174; 1964, c. 386, § 14.1-177; 1998, c. 872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.